Tasteless
by The Lady Avaritia
Summary: Rabastan sends out a cry for help that he doesn't want answered. He falls apart, his ribs crack open, and his rotten insides fall out on the floor, his heart black, charred and crawling with maggots. Set during the first war.


**Title:** Tasteless

**Rating: M**  
><strong>Spoilers: G<strong>eneral

**Characters**: Rod, Rab

**Summary: Rabastan sends out a cry for help that he doesn't want to be answered. He falls apart, his ribs crack open, and his rotten insides fall out on the floor, his heart black, charred and crawling with maggots.**

**Disclaimer: **disclaimed

**Author Note: Written for the My Random Quotes from Random Everywhere challenge on the HPFC.**

**Author: **_Lady Avaritia_

Rabastan has been drinking again. He walks into the living room, his hair messy, his eyes bloodshot, neck covered in bite marks from his vampire whores, and the putrid smell of a cheap bar rolling off of him, replacing the cloud of expensive cologne that usually follows him everywhere.

He walks, slowly, painfully, and reaches his safe heaven – the liquor cabinet, where, with trembling fingers, he pours himself a gracious amount of burning amber fire whiskey, an almond liquid, that, if hit by the right light, looks a bright as fire trapped in crystal confinement…

Like him. He wants to move, to escape, to be free from this… this pointless agony, these feelings that he has no use of, that are completely pointless, and give him nothing but painful nightmares, and he wakes, night after night after night, with the sound of her voice ringing in his head, as if she was right there, and he is thirsty, oh, Slytherin, he's so thirsty, but nothing can quench this thirst, and he wants to be free, to be alive, and he can't. So he ends up splashing against the glass prison of his social status, and he is screaming from within the recess of his mind, beating with his fists against the walls that he's placed there until his fists are bloody and broken, begging for help, desperately needing to be rescued from himself, from all that white burning rage, and doesn't Rod see, for Salazar's sake, doesn't his brother see him falling apart at the seams?

It seems to him, like's being so obvious, in the walking mess of human flesh and desperation he's become recently.

But Rod doesn't notice, because he only has eyes for Bella, and fuck it all, Bella was supposed to be _his_! Damned marriage contracts drawn at birth, damn scheming pureblood parents, damned everything, all he wanted was a chance with her!

With a furious growl he sends the glass flying into the nearest wall, where it shatters in millions of sparkly cutting sharp pieces, just like his heart. He buries his fingers in his tangled chocolate brown hair, and he thinks that maybe it's time to visit Dead Dorothy's Delectable Desires again. It's the best brothel on Knockturn Alley anyway. Of course, he could probably have any woman he wanted, _but_ the woman he wanted, and anyway, rumor has it (Grayback told him) that no human woman can compare to a vampire in bed, and these past few months after the wedding he's been testing out that theory.

'Rab?' Rodolphus calls quietly, uncertainly, and pokes his head through the doorway, before entering.

'Rabastan, are you all right? What on earth happened here?'

'I… I got angry, I guess… I am angry nearly every day of my life. These days… it barely feels like I'm myself.'

'Little brother…'

'Don't!' Rab snapped. 'Don't call me that. I'm not little anymore. I grew up. We both did. I don't need you anymore.'

Rodolphus flinched.

'Fine,' he said, resigned, 'be like that, then. Be angry. Blame me, attack me, be your worst. You hate me because you love her. You torture me, because you do. And if that… revenge is what keeps you anchored, then so be it.'

'There's nothing I do better than revenge,' Rab murmured gravely, and took a large gulp straight from the bottle, figuring that if he took another glass it would just end like the old one.

Rod shook his head.

'You are a poster child for self-destruction, Rab. There's days when I admire the way you so beautifully crash and burn. If you weren't my brother, I would just step back and watch you crash down…'

'Why don't you, Rod? Stop pretending to be good, stop trying to save me from me, give in your ridiculous quest of self-repentance by saving my soul… I just want to be alone, Rod, so that when I cave in and break, and all my failures pour out from every pore in my body, and I fall apart at the seams and drown in my own anger, you will be a safe distance away, and you won't get hurt. You have to let me go, Rod. I have let me go, so why don't you?'

'You are my brother, Rabastan, I can't just let you…'

'But that's what I want, Rod, that's what I need. I need to crash and burn, so I can build myself anew from the ashes. There is a vampire, in the Delectable D's, and she saw the fall of Rome, when she was still human, and she told me all about it. It was a beautiful tale, Rod… Just let me fall. This is a final request. Look at all words I used for you.'

'It's not the words that make it final. You've said such things before to rival them. But it's how you say them now that's changed - cold but sympathetic all the same. You'd like to convince me that I'll be better off. So you go on and I'll be happier.'

'Whether you're convinced or not matters very little to me. I will still leave you behind on my way to hell, and you can't stop me. You _are _better off without me, Rod.'

'But I won't be happier.'

'Oh… But see, I don't want you to be happy. Because I am selfish, and I know that you will either let me sink, and torment your feeble mind with guilt, or take the fall with me in hopes of saving me in the very last moment.'

'You'll have to save yourself this time, Rab. I have a family to think of now, and a position in the Dark Lord's circles… You will make a graceful fall, won't you, Rab? Magnificent enough for the both of us, as if we took it together…'

'When you taunt me so, you have become just like her, heartless. Leave now, go away, or I will hurt you and I will say and do things to you that you will never forgive, and I will never forgive myself. I am angry, Rod, and I am drunk, and damn it, I can't be bothered with saving myself when the call of Lady Dorothy's sating boudoir is so alluring. Just go, if you have made your mind up to leave me, and feel sorry for me in another part of the house, because your pity here only makes me want to hurt you all the more.'

'Very well, then. I leave. Have a good night, Rabastan.'

As he tentatively closed the door behind himself, Rodolphus could hear the sound of Rabastan's light body hitting the marble floor, and a strangled sob escaping from his brother's lips.


End file.
